India Macro

Raghuram Rajan’s monetary policies have received both praise and flak. On one hand, they have been praised as stabilizing forces in a tumultuous global economy awash with central bankers’ reduced interest rates. On the other hand, critics have denounced Raghuram Rajan’s policy changes as being detrimental to growth. This article assesses the impacts of Raghuram Rajan’s policies on the economy and the ‘real’ effects of the global banking crisis. You’ll read insights on how these inflation targeting policies have safeguarded the Indian economy. Read this Raghuram Rajan monetary policy review to find out if Raghuram Rajan’s successor should continue them, or implement new policies.Read More

A key factor when investing in quality stocks is the sustainability of a company’s competitive advantage. In their article, Entry and Exit Barriers, the authors Baijnath Ramraika and Prashant Trivedi suggest that while most investors look at entry barriers as a proxy for the ability of a business to persist with its supernormal returns, the presence or absence of exit barriers is a key factor as well and may at times serve to nullify the impact of entry barriers. Read More

The Indian power sector, which plays a key role in the current government’s ‘development plan’, is undergoing a major upheaval. We hereby present a write-up covering the sector’s issues and share our views on some of the recent happenings.Read More

Multi-Act believes that comparison of returns is meaningful only on a risk-adjusted basis. Since quantifying risk is extremely complex, market participants resort to loose generalizations in their perception of risk, viz. Mutual Funds that invest in Debt Instruments are safe. Financial intermediaries that are evaluated solely based on returns while overlooking the associated risks face an incentive to buy assets complying with a generally accepted benchmark but could be risky on core fundamental parameters. Read More

The markets seem to be in a confound state between uncertainty about hopes of economic recovery and lack of earnings turnaround. We took a look at some numbers regarding the broader market fundamentals in India to assess the mismatch, if any, between expectations and realities. Read More

We do understand that Investing being game of odds, market participants would prefer to pay a premium for ‘certainty’ in earnings, growth etc. But the same question also then logically extends to expensive valuations. One has to be mindful of the fact that as much as the behavioral biases of the market might lead us to think otherwise, prospective returns essentially are a function of arithmetic calculations and not any story built around an investing idea/theme. Read More

India’s corporate sector and its leaders were very impressed as the current government took reigns at the centre on the back of reforms it had set out to achieve. However, a review of the current scenario suggests that things haven’t changed much on the ground. Essentially, the rise in share prices of a majority of companies in the last year have been driven more by valuation re-rating than actual improvement in earnings. Likewise, there is an interesting set of data that is emerging in terms of the shareholding pattern across companies. Read More

Market participants are currently factoring in a cyclical recovery and thus basing their assumptions on such a recovery. We feel that as long as we don’t see a revival in the earnings momentum (as seen in the past), the current rally continues to be one driven by sentiment and “hope”. Read More

The market has been moving up on improving investor sentiment and hope of a revival in the economic growth in the second half of the year with a government which has got a strong mandate possibly taking investment friendly reform measures. Read More